Lifehacker

Unlike most holidays, St. Patrick’s Day is less about the food, and more about the beverages. On top of that, what are largely considered the traditional dish and drink of the day—corned beef and cabbage, and green beer, respectively—are American inventions.

With more workers getting the green light to continue working remotely, those paying high rent prices in larger cities may be considering moving to a place with a lower cost of living. Unfortunately for them, a lot of other people have had the same idea, sending housing costs through the roof.Read more...

OneDrive is among the best cloud storage services around, but it has a problem—its tendency to bombard you with notifications and email spam. Upload photos to OneDrive, and the service starts hitting you up with “On this day memories” notifications on the regular. You’ll get a daily email from OneDrive asking you to…Read more...

Strikes are on the rise. Earlier today, Major League Baseball and the players’ union reached a (tentative) agreement for the 2022 season—it only took 99 days of a tense lockout to get there. Meanwhile, over in Minneapolis, teachers are entering their third day on strike in an attempt to secure smaller class sizes and…Read more...

On March 14, the nerdier side of humanity celebrates Pi Day, a holiday that “commemorates the irrational, transcendent, and never-ending ratio that helps describe circles of all sizes.” Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. It comes out to a figure that starts with 3.14, no matter the size…Read more...

If there’s anything I’ve learned from competing in multiple sports over the years, it’s that there is no single “best” way to train. Moves that are absolutely foundational in one area of fitness are optional or unheard of in another—and yet people can still get strong in one or the other.

Tile is a wonderful and versatile floor and wall covering. Water-resistant, cool to the touch, relatively easy to clean and maintain, and, if properly installed, long-lasting. That doesn’t mean it can’t be damaged, though, and there is nothing—nothing!—more infuriating than a single cracked tile in a field of perfect…Read more...

Maybe it comes from battling death itself as a job, but people who work in medicine can be some dark mf’ers, and you can see it in their slang. Not only have doctors and nurses perfected gallows humor, but they can use most of their “secret words” right in front of patients and their families and they’ll never even…Read more...

We’re cruising toward a world where cords and cables are obsolete, even to power our homes, but we’re not quite there yet. No matter how hard you try, there are probably some pesky cables marring the neat, minimalist perfection of your interior design (or obscuring the mass of dust bunnies and lost Doritos under your…Read more...

Windows isn’t the same without Microsoft PowerToys—a suite of utilities full of helpful features, including a Spotlight-like search bar to quickly open apps or run calculations, a shortcut that immediately mutes your microphone and turns off the webcam, and a tool that lets you keep any app’s window pinned to the…Read more...

The best camera is the one you have on you. That’s what makes smartphone shooters so essential. DSLRs might be able to take better-looking shots, but your Pixel can fit in your pocket, and can go anywhere you can. Not only is it convenient, but you can turn standard photos you’ve already taken into striking shots…Read more...

In the beginning, there was Wordle. The Wordle was online, and the Wordle was good. All things sprang from it, were fruitful, and multiplied: Four Wordles at once. Eight Wordles at once. Math Wordle. Subway Wordle. Gay Wordle. And just as my faith faltered and I began to wonder if Wordles would overrun the Earth,…Read more...

Substack is a newsletter service that lets you follow specific writers and receive their articles directly to your inbox. Its business model centers around a subscription that allows writers to get paid directly from their audience, (while Substack also gets a cut). It’s a great way to collect all your favorite…Read more...

Gutters do an important job—they protect the foundation and structure of your home from water falling off the roof. But anyone who has ever owned a home also knows that traditional gutters have their drawbacks: They can become clogged with leaves, and in colder weather, they can cause ice dams. They can also crack and…Read more...

By now we all know VPNs can be used to watch region-locked content on international streaming services like Netflix and Hulu, but what about region-specific services like the BBC? Anyone in the U.K. with a TV license can stream BBC content like Killing Eve or Peaky Blinders for free on a variety of devices through the…Read more...

Money is a completely made-up, invented resource. In the modern era, we literally create money out of thin air—and increasingly, it doesn’t even require any sort of physical presence. Vast fortunes are represented by ones and zeroes on humming servers, and even the values of currencies bob and weave according to…Read more...

Mozilla Firefox remains the best browser for most people looking to find a balance between features and privacy. Even so, there are several key settings you should change to protect your privacy on Firefox even more. From limiting data collection and cleaning up the home screen to blocking all those “requests for…Read more...

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Unless you don’t own a car, haven’t driven recently or have a powerful aversion to paying attention to economic news (fair), you’ve probably noticed gas prices are soaring across the United States, reaching a record-high national average of $4.252 on March 9 compared to $3.656 a week earlier, according to AAA.

If you only remember one thing from your high school geometry class, there’s a good chance that it’s the first three digits of Pi (“π”): 3.14. Sure, you may not have retained anything else about Pi, like what it means or does, but thanks to the popularity of Pi Day—aka, March 14th (3/14)—those numbers are likely…Read more...

The day before Superstorm Sandy slammed into my neck of the woods a decade ago, my wife asked if we should move our car off the street. I said, confidently and incorrectly, that our street didn’t typically flood, so we had nothing to worry about. A mere 24 hours and four feet of water in my living room later, our car…Read more...

We’ve written a handful of times in this real-estate boom about the collective obsession with Zillow doom-scrolling—looking at and dreaming about buying homes you definitely cannot afford. Zillow has now made it easier to compare the details of said homes with its new side-by-side tool, which gives you a snapshot of…Read more...

If you have children, and no nearby family members clamoring to take them off your hands once in a while, you’ve probably been—or will be—in the market for childcare. There are a handful of different people who can offer in-home care to your little ones. But what’s the difference between the various providers—and how…Read more...

As long as there are computers, there will be bugs crawling around inside them. You know, metaphorically. Lucky for us Windows users, Microsoft has just squashed another batch of them. If you use a PC and you haven’t installed this update yet, you’re going to want to do so immediately.

We probably all consider our dogs essential to our day-to-day lives and wish we could take them everywhere. Many dogs actually do have real jobs and go to work with their humans every day, whether they’re herding livestock, aiding search-and-rescue teams, or providing comfort to hospital patients. But not all working…Read more...

Nothing will make your heart sink faster than realizing you just sent a text to the wrong person. It happens to the best of us, and it’s a mistake you can’t undo—the recipient is going to read it. Those are the facts and you can’t change them.Read more...

The server drops off your bill after you treat yourself to a big restaurant dinner. You pat your pockets for your wallet, mentally calculating the tip in your head—but you’re still patting your pockets. And you’re coming up empty. You don’t have your wallet. What now?

Moon fans and casual lunar observers: If everything goes according to plan, the full moon in March will rise on Friday, March 18. Known as the Worm Moon, it will be brightest at around 3:20 a.m. ET. This is the last full moon before spring begins on March 22, and thus it marks the end of an interminable winter.

It’s the time of year when gardeners are itching to get some plants in the ground—but if you live in a climate zone where it’s still too early, there’s another project you can tackle now to kick-start this year’s garden. If you’re looking to maximize your space, take advantage of more direct sunlight, or just design…Read more...

During Apple’s big “Peek Performance” event yesterday, the company unveiled a bunch of new products and chips coming this year. One of them was the third-gen iPhone SE, offering customers the essential iPhone experience at a reasonable price. What could be better? Well, the phone, for one. It’s good, but it’s not…Read more...

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We’ve already covered why you should stop using dryer sheets—now it’s time to vanquish the next unnecessary step in your laundry routine: fabric softener. I know, you like how it makes your clothes feel! (And smell.) If you’re a longtime user, you’d be forgiven for thinking in fabric softener’s absence, all your…Read more...

A lot of people daydream about starting their own garden. Whether it’s in your yard or in containers on your deck or windowsill, the idea of growing fresh vegetables and fruits seems like a delightful use of your property and time. It’s also a potential budget boon, as growing your own food can be a lot cheaper than…Read more...

Windows 11 shipped with a “dark mode,” but not a good one. It’s more like a dark theme, missing features you’ve come to expect from other platforms. Dark mode should automatically kick in at sunset, or an hour of your choosing. It should be easy to turn on and off, preferably from a quick settings panel. Neither of tho…Read more...

Windows PCs and laptops are designed to automatically go to sleep when you aren’t using them. This is a good thing: It helps save battery life and extends the life of your computer. But sometimes, you don’t want it to go to sleep, maybe because you want to run a background scan overnight, or you want to download a…Read more...

Want to hide parts of a screenshot that contain personal information, such as your home address or credit card number? That’s a good idea, but you should stop using tools that pixelate, blur, or use other cool effects like swirls to hide this information—it’s almost like baiting strangers into trying to see what’s…Read more...

Fan of March Madness? Or watching several sports at once? Firefox has a built-in picture-in-picture mode that lets you pop out an unlimited number of videos in floating browsers. That means you can watch multiple videos, and you can have each of them on top of every other window on your computer. If you have a second…Read more...

Blueberries are a popular pancake inclusion. They’re a very breakfast-y fruit—there is literally a cereal called “Blueberry Morning”—and they add a nice pop of color to an otherwise beige dish. Also: They just taste good. They’re sweet and slightly sour, the perfect counterbalance to sweet, buttery pancakes. But…Read more...

At long last, winter is almost over, and it’s nearly spring planting time—in fact, there are some vegetables you should start planting right now. As you return to the soil this season to (hopefully) be dazzled by your very own homegrown tomatoes and basil this summer, consider using an unorthodox—but effective—trick…Read more...

Organization can make or break any travel experience. Sure, it’s tempting to romanticize the life of the rugged backpacker, but there’s probably room for a laptop or phone in that backpack. And if you have a laptop or phone, then you can and should make yourself an ultimate travel spreadsheet to help you manage your…Read more...

Apple CEO Tim Cook took the digital stage today, March 8, to announce a host of new products from the company. The presentation was heavily focused on performance, highlighting how all of Apple’s new devices sported powerful Apple silicon processors at their core. From the A15 to the M1—and even to a brand new chipset…Read more...

Windows 11 doesn’t just come with a new coat of paint. There are many new features and redesigned elements here, from the widget panel, to the quick settings, to dedicated virtual desktops. And they all come with their very own, brand new keyboard shortcuts.

There are a lot of bad decisions you might make if a deer appears in front of you in the road while you’re driving. You’ll be startled, it will freeze, and your brain will sound the alarm that you should do something now—but please, avoid the urge to swerve around it.

I do not know if you are aware, but I recently traveled from Portland to New York City to participate in a little collective action. While acting collectively, I also ate collectively with co-workers both old and new. One evening, after a day of marching and chanting, we went out for Korean BBQ, which (naturally) led…Read more...

Anyone who’s bathed with a loofah knows: Its lathering skills are legendary. No other soap carrier can hold a sud to the loofah’s ability to generate copious, instantaneous foam at the slightest brush across your skin. And the volume! A wash cloth could never.

Like the Trash folder on a Mac, the Recycle Bin seems like a pretty important part of Windows. If you accidentally delete something, you can always get it back (unless you’re a Shift + Delete person). But it’s time to question the need for a Recycle Bin on your Windows machine, because far too often, it becomes yet…Read more...

Ever wanted to merge a few different PDF files into a single document? You might have googled third-party apps or found sites to do it online, but your Mac actually has a built-in tool that allows you to merge PDFs instantly. It’s built right into Finder, and it’s been hiding in plain sight for a while.Read more...

Across much of the world, WhatsApp is now the default messaging app (except, of course, in the U.S.). And that’s mostly for good reason—it’s free, it’s fast, and it’s end-to-end encrypted. But one side effect of WhatsApp’s popularity is it compresses the hell out of every photo and video you share. Sometimes, you have…Read more...

Gardening is power. Sure, you might think of gardening as the hobby of grandmotherly types, but gardening is all about mankind’s endless battle to dominate and control the world. We see a plot of land covered in happy native flora and we decide, “Nope. Today you will do exactly as I say, no matter how much time,…Read more...

I don’t know why, but it’s undeniably easier to believe something you hear in the middle of the night. “Sure,” you think, sitting in the lonely glow of your TV, probably drunk, “maybe I could lose 20 pounds a month by taking an herbal pill,” or “maybe I can keep food from slopping all over my chest when I eat.” So you…Read more...